Second Life Brazil launches 23rd April
It is an odd coincidence that while Mr Wallace is away in Brazil, I have become aware of a new Linden Labs initiative - Second Life Brazil. Since late 2006 there has been an influx of Brazillians entering Second Life, prompted by coverage on Brazillian TV. However, there has been a language barrier, which the new initiative addresses. Brazillian partners Kaizen Games, a major distributor of online and PC games, and iG, Brasil Telecom’s internet service provider, will be delivering a Portuguese language version of Second Life, allowing many more Brazillians to participate. Their target is to attract some 2 million new residents in the first year.
New residents, registering through the Second Life Brasil website, will be brought inworld via specially constructed orientation zones and an extensive range of new starter islands. Support will be provided locally, and it will be possible to buy Linden Dollars using Brazillian currency, the Real. Existing Second Life residents do not require new accounts. They merely need to login via the new website to activate their account with Second Life Brasil and pick up the Portuguese viewer software. The servers are under Linden Labs ownership, and will presumably remain in the US.
The starting point for new entrants is the island »kgbr03«, one of a large cluster of islands providing specifically Brazillian content. This island is already open, and Portuguese-speaking helpers are available, although the official launch will not take place until 23rd April. I spoke with one of the helpers, TH Araw. He is (according to the babelfish translation) “the first Brazilian virtual father”, and provided an interview as part of a news article on TV Globo that helped kick-start the Brazillian interest in Second Life. You can view this at YouTube. TH provided much of the information in this article.
The starting island provides orientation facilities and links to Second Life sims that are likely to prove of interest to many new residents. There is also a collection of free clothing so you can enter into the carnival spirit, and a dance floor where you can strut your stuff in your new finery.
Aleister Kronos appears by kind permission of Ambling in Second Life.
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To be thankful my virtual friend for the substance in blog, I am very grateful for citing my name ty so much Kronos!
So, hmm. “Kaizen Games - Secondlife Global Provider” (graphic on the website)
Whats all that about then, global provider? Anyone got any info on this?
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It is not often I propose to comment on my own blog entries. But I thought you might like to know that in my travels in SL today I came across a 25-sim cluster of new land (use “Map” and “Search” and look for “Cancao Nova”) with a distictly Brazillian theme, offering plots of land for sale, and providing a number of buildings. I would be surprised if this was a coincidence! :-)
You know, I am always wary of people or companies claiming to be “the first”.
There has been a group of islands for some time now — months — in SL called “Brasil”. They are Brazilians running it, they routinely pack 100 people on a sim without camp chairs, and they have great builds and shopping and dancing and such. I’ve been renting a stall there just because it’s a huge stampede of genuine and natural traffic, and translating my cards into fake Portugese just to try to deal with the influx. I think these Brasilians, like the Russians at TechInvest who made a Russian welcome area, illustrate that you don’t necessarily need Lindens to make country-specific welcoming areas.
Oh, finally! April 23rd? Ever since the Kaizen executives went to visit Linden Lab back in December, I’ve been wondering when the launch was. Reports were that the launch would be in January or Feb. but it kept getting delayed. I left messages at Kaizen’s U.S. office in Boston trying to pin the date down. I wanted details about what the user interface would look like when Brazilians log in. I had heard that users would see an image of Sao Paulo instead of the default desert image, but it was all heresay until I could speak to a Kaizen exec. It would also be interesting to know how much of the UI is in Portuguese. As you know, LL offers a beta version of Portuguese (a mix of Brazilian Portuguese, and Portugal’s Portuguese) in the preferences menu. Edit–>Preferences–>–General–> Languages. By the way, speaking of Brazil, don’t forget the news about the Brazilian airline TAM, entering Second Life. The airline said Thursday it would offer virtual flights and frequent flier points.
TH Araw made the point to me that there ssems to be a real appetite and enthusiasm for SL in Brazil. It has been my observation, over the last 4 months or so, that the Brazilliams do indeed have a whale of a time together in SL. If that could be bottled & sold, many RL company marketing people could stop scratching their heads!
[…] What with the upcoming launch of Second Life Brasil, the arrival of Second News! Brasil, and the Gartner Conference in, Sao Paulo, Brasil (April 10th and 11th), virtual worlds in general and Second Life, in particular, are making a big splash in Brasil at the moment. […]
Another thought, bulding on Prokofy’s comment. For a variety of reasons it is clear that SL is making a Big Splash in Brazil, and there will be a significant push to bring in more residents. It is also likely that many of these residents will choose to stay and enjoy the rich realm of SL. My thought: How will the LL servers cope with both a peak in new accounts and (more importantly) a likely step-change in the number of concurrent users? We have seen it struggle in recent weeks, with max. concurrency approaching 40K, and 5.5M accounts. I trust that all this has been taken into account and a suitably robust architecture put in place. :-)
[…] Brazil era el país número 7 en febrero. Durante marzo, añadió 87,053 residentes, un incremento de 55.6% en un sólo mes y pasando así a sexto lugar. Se entiende ahora la razón de que Linden Lab esté apoyando fuertemente el crecimiento de esta comunidad, en particular con la creación de Second Life Brasil. […]
Aleister, the SIM Canção Nova belongs to a brazilian religious group, and in my last visit there (2 days ago) i didn’t see anything particular “brazilian” about it. :-) just lots of land and buildings that resemble big malls.
There’s more on Cancao Nova here: http://tinyurl.com/29b4tl
Or for potuguese-speakers, here is the original: http://tinyurl.com/2awkpj
Here’s their official blog (in Portuguese): http://blog.cancaonova.com/secondlife/
Fantastic to see more cultural flavors enter Second Life with their own orientation experiences. The Seoond Life Brazil site looks very smooth; great photography!
Also be sure to check out the new Japanese region of Meltingdots. Their OI resembles a giant walled city with some very colorful architecture reminiscent of Super Mario games — meant as a compliment, of course. I took some pictures.
[…] […]
[…] And, with the recent launch of Second Life Brasil, the arrival of Second News! Brasil, Europeans may not be majority (61%) on Second Life for long. Recently, I noticed that Capoeira clothing was already being sold on SL. And, I assume we will be seeing more of Capoeira - the African Brasilian martial art/dance/culture on Second Life Brasil. This liberation culture that originated in Africa and remained secret and outlawed during slavery, and until the late 1950s, has become immensely popular in Brasil and around the world. To see a video of the two legendary Mestres (Joao Grande and Joao Pequeno) playing the traditional form of Capoeira Angola in Real Lifego here and to see a clip of Mestre Joao Grande in Sidney Pollack’s. The Interpreter here.) […]